Method and apparatus for using quick response codes in e-commerce

ABSTRACT

An email payment gateway configured to enable users to receive @PAY offers using print media quick response (QR) codes. A consumer views an advertisement or product having packing with a QR code and scans the QR code. Scanning the QR code generates an email addressed to the email payment gateway requesting information on the product, which is sent to the email payment gateway. The email payment gateway receives the email and responds to the consumer with an email that includes information on the products in the advertisement. Included in the email from the email payment gateway is a button enabling the recipient to purchase the relevant item. The button preferably includes a mail-to hyperlink as that generates an outgoing email reply requesting to purchase the product.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application claims the benefit of U.S. provisional application No.61/676,505, filed Jul. 27, 2012, which is incorporated herein byreference as if fully set forth.

BACKGROUND

Currently available mechanisms for performing electronic financialtransactions such as electronic purchases are inefficient, timeconsuming, and not user friendly. A need therefore exists for a secureelectronic system and method for managing electronic purchases moresecurely, conveniently and efficiently.

SUMMARY

A method and apparatus for enabling users of an email payment gateway toreceive @PAY offers using print media quick response (QR) codes. Aconsumer views an advertisement or product having packing with a QR codeand scans the QR code. Scanning the QR code generates an email addressedto the email payment gateway requesting information on the product,which is sent to the email payment gateway. The email payment gatewayreceives the email and responds to the consumer with an email thatincludes information on the products in the advertisement. Included inthe email from the email payment gateway is a button enabling therecipient to purchase the relevant item. The button preferably includesa mail-to hyperlink as that generates an outgoing email reply requestingto purchase the product.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

A more detailed understanding may be had from the following description,given by way of example in conjunction with the accompanying drawingswherein:

FIG. 1 shows a logical architecture for engaging in electronic commerceusing email;

FIG. 2 shows a method for authenticating an email;

FIG. 3 is a method implemented with an email payment gateway;

FIG. 4 is a diagram of an email sent from an email payment gateway to acustomer;

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing UUIDs and the data with which they areassociated wherein the UUIDs are associated with each other;

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing UUIDs and the data with which they areassociated wherein a plurality of the UUIDs are combined into a singleUUID for inclusion into an email;

FIG. 7 is a diagram of an email sent from a customer to an email paymentgateway;

FIG. 8 shows an example system that may be used to implement the presentinvention;

FIG. 9 shows the present invention being implemented in a mobile phone;and

FIG. 10 is a diagram of a system for allowing a user to use quickresponse (QR) codes to obtain offers on products associated with the QRcodes and purchase such products.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIG. 1 shows an example logical architecture 114 for email-basede-commerce. The example architecture 114 may include a customer clientdevice 120, an e-commerce system 100, a payment processing system 136, apurchase fulfillment system 138, and a vendor client device 130. Thee-commerce system 100 may include an account management module 102, adatabase module 104, an e-commerce database 106, a purchase executionmodule 108, a security module 109, a message processing module 110, andan email interface module 112.

It is noted that one or more of the e-commerce system 100, the paymentprocessing system 136, and/or purchase fulfillment system 138 may becollectively be referred to hereinafter as an email payment gateway 115.Further, the email payment gateway 115, in addition to comprising one ormore of the e-commerce system 100, the payment processing system 136,and/or purchase recognition fulfillment system 138, may be configured toinclude one of more of the individual components of the e-commercesystem 100 as desired.

As will be described in further detail below, the e-commerce system 100and customer client device 120 may exchange email messages to initiateand manage purchases. Also as will be described in further detail below,the e-commerce system 100 may communicate with the payment processingsystem 136 and the purchase fulfillment system 138 to execute thetransactions.

The account management module 102 in the e-commerce system 100 maymanage data related to accounts for customers and vendors using the thee-commerce system 100. The account management module 102 may be orinclude, for example, a web application. Vendors may interact with theaccount management module 102 via a web browser, such as the web browsermodule 134 in the vendor client device 130. As one example, a user ofthe vendor client device 130 may provide information to the accountmanagement module 102 such as: information related to a particularproduct to be used for email advertisements to be sent to customers inemail campaigns; email formatting information to be used for emailadvertisements to be sent to customers; financial information related tobank accounts and/or other types of financial accounts (e-Paymentaccounts such as PayPal accounts) that may be used to receive paymentsfrom customers using the e-commerce system 100, such as account numbersand/or other identifying information; and/or other information.Customers may register with the e-commerce system 100 by interactingwith the account management module 102 via a web browser, such as theweb browser module 124 in the customer client device 120. A user of thecustomer client device 120 may provide information to the accountmanagement module 102 via the web browser module 124 such as: an emailaddress associated with the customer; financial information associatedwith the customer, such as a credit card information (such as a creditcard number and expiration date), and/or other information related tobank accounts and/or other types of financial accounts (such ase-payment accounts) that may be used to make payments to vendors via thee-commerce system 100; shipping address information; billing addressinformation; preferences regarding which vendors the customer would liketo receive email advertisements from; and/or other information.

The account management module 102 may, via the database module 104,store information received from the customer client device 120 and/orthe vendor client device 130 in the e-commerce database 106. The accountmanagement module 102 may also add information to the e-commercedatabase 106 when customers and vendors register with the e-commercesystem 100, such as customer identifiers, vendor identifiers, and otheridentifying information.

The security module 109 generates a plurality of Universal UniqueIdentifiers (UUIDs) 202. A UUID is an identifier standard used insoftware construction, standardized by the Open Software Foundation(OSF) as part of the Distributed Computing Environment (DCE).

Utilizing UUIDs enables distributed systems to uniquely identifyinformation without significant central coordination. Since theidentifiers have a finite size, it is possible for two differing itemsto share the same identifier. However, the identifier size andgeneration process are selected such that this is sufficiently unlikely.

In one embodiment, the UUIDs have a length of 32 characters, in groups,separated by a “dash” (-) character. For example, in one embodiment, anexample generated code may be: 891BE826-C023-4DAD-9E53-EE62B-836079C.

The message processing module 110 (in conjunction with the emailinterface module 112) may generate and transmit email messages tocustomers registered with the e-commerce system 100, such as the user ofthe customer client device 120. The advertisement email messages may beHyperText Markup Language (HTML) email messages, Rich Text Format (RTF)email messages, and/or may be defined according to any other appropriateformat. The advertisement email messages may include Uniform ResourceIdentifiers (URIs) or hyperlinks that are defined according to themailto URI scheme. Each mailto URI or hyperlink may describe an emailmessage that may be generated by an email client module (such as theemail client module 122) when that URI or hyperlink is selected. Thegenerated message may include a number of parameters that indicate, forexample, a product the customer wishes to purchase, which was advertisedin the advertisement email. Of course, the generated message may alsoinclude the identity of the customer who is the recipient of thegenerated message (e.g. John Smith).

In the situation where the customer wishes to purchase one or moreproducts indicated in the message, the customer may reply to thegenerated message, in which case a message is sent to the e-commercesystem 100 and, in one embodiment, received by the message processingmodule 110. When the generated message is received by the messageprocessing module 110, the message processing module 110 may theninitiate a transaction to purchase one or more productes indicated inthe message on behalf of the customer. In such an instance, the messageprocessing module 110 may interact with the purchase execution module108 to perform the transaction.

The email interface module 112 may be configured to use one or moreemail accounts that are associated with the e-commerce system 100, andto send and receive messages associated with the one or more emailaccounts. The email interface module 112 and/or the email client module122 in the customer client device 120 may communicate email messagesusing technologies such as Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), PostOffice Protocol (POP) technology, Internet Message Access Protocol(IMAP), Remote Procedure Call (RPC) technology, HyperText TransferProtocol (HTTP), and/or other appropriate technologies. The interfacemodule 112 and/or the email client module 122 may use these technologiesto transmit and/or receive email messages via one or more email servers(not depicted). The email client module 122 may be or include an emailclient such as Microsoft Outlook, Thunderbird, a web browserapplication, or any other client application for the communication ofemail messages. In an instance where the email client module 122 is orincludes a web browser application, the email client module 122 may bethe same web browser described above that may be used to communicatewith the account management module 102; alternatively the email clientmodule 122 and the web browser described above that may be used tocommunicate with the account management module 102 may be different.

The payment processing system 136 may be, as one example, a system thatis operated by a financial institution for the purposes of processingpayments made by customers using the email payment gateway 115. In suchcases, the payment processing system 136 may have a connection to one ormore banking networks (not depicted, such as banking institutions; Visa,Mastercard, American Express; or PayPal; or the like) that it may use toprocess payments corresponding to their respective purchase amounts. Thepurchase execution module 108 may communicate with the paymentprocessing system 136 using technology such as Transport Layer Security(TLS) or Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology. The purchase fulfillmentsystem 138 may be an order management system (OMS), Enterprise ResourcePlanning (ERP), supply chain management, electronic purchasing system,inventory control system, or any other appropriate system for fulfillingorders. When fulfilling purchases, the purchase fulfillment system 138may, in addition to sending an indication to the customer, be configuredto provide some type of public acknowledgement (such as an electronic orsocial networking posting, blast or tweet) indicating that the customerhas purchased the particular product. Such acknowledgements preferablyrequire the authorization of the customer. Vendors may choose tocompensate customers for agreeing to allow such public acknowledgement.

The e-commerce database 106 may store information such as informationthat describes email campaigns, email advertisements that may be sent tocustomers, customer information, vendor information, productinformation, status related information, and/or other information.

Additionally, the e-commerce database 106 may store information thatindicates correspondences between different email campaigns,advertisements, customers, vendors, products, information related toorder statuses, and/or other information. For each email campaign, thee-commerce database 106 may store information that includes anidentifier of the vendor associated with the campaign, identifiers ofthe products associated with the campaign, and/or other information. Foreach order that is placed with the e-commerce system 100, the e-commercedatabase 106 may store information such as an identifier of the customerthat made the order, when the order was placed, an identifier of theproduct associated with the order, and/or other information.

For each product described in the e-commerce database 106, thee-commerce database 106 may store information that includes anidentifier of the product, a description of the product, a title of theproduct, an identifier of the vendor associated with the product, a costof the product, and/or other information.

The e-commerce database 106 may be spread across one or any number ofcomputer-readable storage media (not depicted). The e-commerce database106 may be or include, for example, a relational database, ahierarchical database, an object-oriented database, a flat file, aspreadsheet, or a structured file. The database module 104 may interfacewith a database management system (not depicted) in order to add datato, modify data in, or obtain data from the e-commerce database 106.Alternatively or additionally, the database module 104 may performdatabase driver and/or database client functionality to interact withthe database management system. The database management system may bebased on a technology such as Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Access,MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle Relational Database Management System (RDBMS),Not Only SQL (NoSQL), or any other appropriate technology.

Each or any combination of the modules described above with reference toFIG. 1 (including the account management module 102, database module104, purchase execution module 108, message processing module 110, emailinterface module 112, email client module 122, web browser module 134,and the web browser module 124 in the customer client device 120) may beimplemented as software modules, specific-purpose processor elements, oras combinations thereof. Suitable software modules include, by way ofexample, an executable program, a function, a method call, a procedure,a routine or sub-routine, one or more processor-executable instructions,an object, or a data structure. Additionally, the system 100 maycomprise a single server or computer, or may comprise a plurality ofservers or computers, or a much larger integrated or distributedcomputer network including a plurality of computers and communicationdevices and networks. One example of such an extended network is theInternet. The terminology customer client device 120 will be referred tohereinafter as comprising a mobile or stationary device or terminal.

Referring to FIG. 2, a method 200 for authenticating an email inaccordance with the present invention is shown. The method 200 is shownbetween the system 100 and a customer client device 120.

As aforementioned, the security module 109 generates 202 a plurality ofUUIDs. The UUIDs as delivered in an email message are “opaque”, in thatthe associated authentication information is not ultimately derivablefrom parsing the UUID. Although the UUID will be associated withparticular authentication information within the database 106, (such asa customer, a campaign, a particular item, an expiration date, etc.),this information is not derivable from the UUID.

Once the UUIDs are generated 202, they are stored 204 in the database106 for later use. It should also be understood by those of skill in theart, that the storing 204 of the UUIDs is not necessary, in that theUUIDs may be generated 102 upon demand, (i.e. when they are needed), sothat storing 204 of the UUIDs is not necessary. Accordingly, those ofskill in the art should understand step 204 as being optional.

When a new email “campaign” is to be conducted, the UUIDs are retrievedfrom memory, (or the UUIDs are generated upon demand if they were notpreviously generated and stored). The UUIDs are associated 206 withparticular authentication information to create an authenticationcontrol packet. Once each UUID is associated 206 with particularauthentication information to create an authentication control packet300, one or more UUIDs may be embedded in an email as one or morebuttons, for example. The email is then transmitted 210 from the system100 to the customer client device 120. The customer client device 120receives 212 the email, and the customer is allowed to review the emailand make a selection 214 of one or more of the buttons, which in oneembodiment, may correspond to one or more products.

The selection 214 of one or more of the buttons by the causes causes thecustomer client device 120 to generate 216 a return email which includesthe UUIDs associated with the one or more selected buttons. The returnemail including the UUIDs is then transmitted 218 from the customerclient device 120 to the system 100 where it is received 220. It shouldbe noted by those of skill in the art that although the return email isshown as being transmitted 218 back to the system 100, it may also besent to a third party site for processing without departing from thespirit and scope of the present invention.

Initial processing 225 of the return email is performed in steps 224 and226. In step 224, the return email is parsed for one or more UUIDs. Instep 226, security qualification of the UUIDs is performed. In step 228,the system further processes the transaction based upon the success orfailure of the security qualification.

FIG. 3 is a flow diagram of a method 400 of a disclosed embodimentwherein purchases made using an email payment gateway 115. The method400 begins with step 402 wherein a plurality of unique codes aregenerated. The unique codes may be generated using any coding techniqueand any coding generation process. As described in more detail above, byway of example, the unique code may be a universally unique identifier(UUID). The UUID may be any length. Hereafter, the terms “codes” and“UUID's” may be used interchangeably

Next, in step 404, at least one subset of the generated UUIDs areassociated with various data sets included in an email message that maybe sent to one or more recipients. The various data sets included in anemail may be configured as desired, but in general relate to offeringproducts for sale such as a vendor, email campaign, products beingoffered for sale, etc.

For example, in the context of various household products offered forsale by Company X and referring now to FIG. 4, an email 502 may includea data set indicative of a recipient (i.e. a member who may or may notbe registered with the email payment gateway 115) 502A (e.g. JohnSmith), a data set indicative of a particular vendor 502B, a data setindicative of a particular email campaign 503 (e.g. 10% off sale), and adata set indicative of various products offered for sale 502C, such asproduct 1, product 2, and product X. It is noted that for vendors whooffer multiple types of products for sale, data set 502B may, inaddition to identifying the vendor, also indicate the type of productsbeing offered in email 502 (e.g. household products). It is furthernoted that the terms email campaign and email blast may usedinterchangeably herein. As mentioned hereinbefore, the various data setsincluded in an email such as email 502 may be configured as desired. Anexample configuration is where a plurality of executable hyperlinks(i.e. buttons) are provided for each product in data set 502C. Toillustrate this example, button 502D is an executable hyperlink forpurchasing product 1, button 502E is an executable hyperlink forpurchasing product 2, and button 502F is an executable hyperlink forpurchasing product X.

Referring back to FIG. 3, in step 406, the subset of generated UUIDs maybe stored in a database. The database may be a database such as database106 described above, or may be a separate database provided for thepurpose of retrieving and verifying information sent to the emailpayment gateway 115 in response to emails sent from the email paymentgateway 115. That is, in addition to the storage of UUIDs, providing theability to retrieve the UUIDs later when sending subsequent emailsversus regenerating them when sending subsequent emails as discussedabove, storing the UUIDs in a database (either a same database or aseparate database) enables different options for efficiently processingresponses from customers to emails containing the subset of generatedcodes, or enables efficient processing by third parties.

For example, in one embodiment, each UUID in the subset of generatedUUIDs is associated with each other in the database within which theyare stored, such that all of the generated UUIDs that make up the subsetmay be retrieved from the database by applying any one of the subset ofgenerated UUIDs to the database. To provide an example of such anarrangement, reference is made to FIG. 5. In FIG. 5, a subset ofgenerated UUIDs are shown as UUIDp, UUIDb, UUIDm, UUID1, UUID2, andUUID2. This subset of generated UUIDs are associated with a data setincluded in the email 502 of FIG. 4 where UUIDp corresponds to theparticular vendor and optionally a type of product which in the currentexample is Company X—household products 502B as shown in FIG. 4, UUIDbcorresponds to 10% off sale 503, UUIDm corresponds to John Smith 502Aand UUID1, UUID2 and UUIDx correspond to products 1, 2, and x,respectively. In such a scenario, a reply email sent from John Smith tothe email payment gateway (115 of FIG. 1) will enable the email paymentgateway 115 to retrieve the entire subset of associated UUIDs and verifythe information and, once verified, process the payment for purchasingthe selected product. The reply email is generated by the user simplyexecuting the button associated with the product he/she wishes topurchase. Therefore, in one embodiment, the email payment gateway 115may be configured such that when a reply email is sent in response toemail 502, the reply email will include the UUID corresponding to theselected product and UUIDm corresponding to the identity of the sender,John Smith 502A (and optionally, as additional levels of security, theUUIDp corresponding to the partner and/or UUIDb corresponding to theemail blast). In this manner, a relatively small amount of data is sentin the reply email but all of the UUIDs in the subset may be retrievedand verified based on receipt of the UUIDs in the reply email. Onceverified, the donation may be processed. The UUIDs may be visible to theuser or not visible, depending upon the manner in which the buttons areencoded. This is a technology choice which will be clearly understood bythose of skill in the art.

In another embodiment, and as also described in step 406, instead ofassociating each of the UUIDs with each other and storing them in adatabase as described hereinbefore, UUIDp, UUIDb, and UUIDm, may becombined to generate a single UUID (UUIDc as shown in FIG. 6). In thisembodiment, UUIDc and UUID1, UUID2, and UUIDX are included in emailssent from the email payment gateway to a recipient. Reply emails sentback to the email payment gateway 115 from the recipient include UUIDcand at least one of UUID1, UUID2, and UUIDX corresponding to theselected donation amount. In this embodiment, upon receipt of returnemails, the email payment gateway 115 does not need to retrieve andcompare all of the received UUIDs from a database prior to verifying theemail. Instead, the email payment gateway 115 may only compare thereceived UUIDc with its list of active UUIDc identifiers to verify theemail. Once verified, payment is processed for the purchases itemaccording to the at least one of UUID1, UUID2, and UUIDX as included inthe received email 502 of FIG. 4.

Of course, as noted above, while two examples of code generation areprovided, the UUIDs may be generated, associated, configured, related orotherwise structured with respect to not only how they related to thedata sets of the emails but also with respect to optimization of backendretrieval, verification and processing.

Referring back to FIG. 3, the next step is to select one or more codesto be included in the email message being sent from the email paymentgateway 115 to a customer (step 408). As described hereinbefore, thecodes may be generated in any manner as desired and the selection ofcodes for inclusion in the email sent from the email payment gateway 115to a customer may be related to the manner in which the codes aregenerated. For example, where the subset of generated codes are eachassociated with each other such that the entire subset may be retrievedbased on any one code of the subset; step 408 requires the selection ofwhich code(s) to include in the emails to/from the email payment gateway115 and to use for retrieval purposes. On the other hand, where aplurality of codes in the subset of generated codes are combined into asingle code, the combined code, and possibly any other codescorresponding to specific products being offered for sale are selectedto include in the emails to/from the email payment gateway 115.

Referring back to FIG. 3, a recipient of an email executes 410 one ofthe buttons included therein to generate a reply email capable ofcausing the recipients intended purchase to occur automatically from theperspective of the user with no further steps required by the user.

To provide a first example embodiment showing a possible implementationof step 410 of FIG. 3, reference is made to FIGS. 4 and 7 anduser-received email 502 and user-reply email 510 in particular. In FIG.4, by way of example, an embodiment is shown wherein a recipient, JohnSmith, executes button 502D of email 502 in FIG. 4 wherein button 502Dcorresponds to product 1.

As discussed hereinbefore when describing the embodiment where UUIDs areassociated with each other, the button 502D corresponding to product 1includes UUID1 which: a) belongs to the subset of generated UUIDsassociated with the 10% off sale; and b) is one of the subset ofgenerated UUIDs stored in the database 504 of the email payment gateway115.

In this embodiment, upon execution of the button 502D corresponding toproduct 1, a reply email 510 (FIG. 7) is generated and sent to the emailpayment gateway 501. The email 510 includes UUID1 embedded therein(shown using reference numeral 550 for convenience). UUID1 is applied toa database of the email payment gateway 115 to positively match andidentify the UUID1 as a valid UUID, and then to obtain additionalinformation regarding the partner/campaign/member/etc. and the email 510is then processed by the email payment gateway 115 as shown in in step412 of FIG. 3.

In this example, the instructed financial transaction is a purchase ofproduct 1, which belongs to household products offered for sale fromCompany X as part of its 10% off sale campaign. Of course, in accordancewith the second code generation example provided above, where acombination UUID is used such as UUIDc, the step of retrieving datastored in a database is not necessary.

FIG. 8 shows an example system 1300 that may be used to implementfeatures of the present invention. The example system 1300 includes ane-commerce server 1350, a client device 1370, and one or more networks1380.

The e-commerce server 1350 may include at least one processor 1352,memory device 1354, network interface 1356, and storage device 1358. Theclient device 1370 may include at least one processor 1372, memorydevice 1374, network interface 1376, input device interface 1375,display device interface 1377, and storage device 1378.

The e-commerce server 1350 may be configured to perform any feature orcombination of features described hereinbefore as performed by theaccount management module 102, database module 104, order executionmodule 108, message processing module 110, and/or email interface module112. The client device 1370 may be configured to perform any feature orcombination of features described above with reference to FIGS. 1-5 asperformed by the email client module 122 and/or the web browser modulein the customer client device 120. The client device 1370 may be, forexample, a desktop computer, a laptop computer, a netbook, a tabletcomputer, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a cellular phone, or anyother appropriate device.

Each or any of the memory devices 1354, 1374 may be or include a devicesuch as a Dynamic Random Access Memory (D-RAM), Static RAM (S-RAM), orother RAM or a flash memory. Each or any of the storage devices 1358,1378 may be or include a hard disk, a magneto-optical medium, an opticalmedium such as a CD-ROM, a digital versatile disk (DVDs), or Blu-Raydisc (BD), or other type of device for electronic data storage. Thestorage device 1358 in the e-commerce server 1350 may store theinformation or any subset of the information described hereinbefore asstored in the e-commerce database 106.

Each or any of the network interfaces 1356, 1376 may be, for example, acommunications port, a wired transceiver, or a wireless transceiver.Each or any of the network interfaces 1356, 1376 may be capable ofcommunicating using technologies such as Ethernet, fiber optics,microwave, xDSL (Digital Subscriber Line), Wireless Local Area Network(WLAN) technology, wireless cellular technology, and/or any otherappropriate technology. The network interfaces 1356, 1376 may be used bythe e-commerce server 1350 and/or the client device 1370 to communicatevia the one or more networks 1380. The network interface in thee-commerce server 1350 may be configured to communicate any of themessages and/or other information described hereinbefore as communicatedby the account management module 102, database module 104, orderexecution module 108, message processing module 110, and/or emailinterface module 112. The network interface 1376 in the client device1370 may be configured to communicate any of the messages and/or otherinformation described hereinbefore as communicated by the email clientmodule 122 and/or by the web browser module in the customer clientdevice 120 used for communicating with the account management module102.

The one or more networks 1380 may include one or more private networksand/or one or more public networks such as the Internet. The one or morenetworks 1380 may be based on wired and/or wireless networkingtechnologies.

The input device interface 1375 in the client device 1370 may be aninterface configured to receive input from an input device such as akeyboard, a mouse, a trackball, a scanner, a touch screen, a touch pad,a stylus pad, and/or other device. The input device interface 1375 mayoperate using a technology such as Universal Serial Bus (USB), PS/2,Bluetooth, infrared, and/or other appropriate technology. The inputdevice interface 1375 may be configured to receive any or anycombination of the user input described hereinbefore as received by theby the email client module 122 and/or by the web browser module in thecustomer client device 120 used for communicating with the accountmanagement module 102.

The display device interface 1377 may be an interface configured tocommunicate data to a display device (not depicted). The display deviceinterface 1377 may operate using technology such as Video Graphics Array(VGA), Super VGA (S-VGA), Digital Visual Interface (DVI),High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI), or other appropriatetechnology. The client device 1370 may include or be connected to adisplay device (not depicted) via the display device interface 1377. Thedisplay device may be, for example, a monitor or television display, aplasma display, a liquid crystal display (LCD), and/or a display basedon a technology such as front or rear projection, light emitting diodes(LEDs), organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), or Digital LightProcessing (DLP). The display device may be configured to display, basedon data received via the display device interface 1377, any displayelements described hereinbefore as displayed by the email client module122 and/or by the web browser module in the customer client device.

The memory device 1354 and/or the storage device 1358 of the e-commerceserver 1350 may store instructions which, when executed by the at leastone processor 1352, cause the at least one processor 1352 to perform anyfeature or combination of features described hereinbefore as performedby the account management module 102, database module 104, orderexecution module 108, message processing module 110, and/or emailinterface module 112. The memory device 1374 and/or the storage device1358 of the client device 1370 may store instructions which, whenexecuted by the at least one processor 1372, cause the at least oneprocessor 1372 to perform any feature or combination of featuresdescribed hereinbefore as performed by the email client module 122and/or by the web browser module in the customer client device 120 usedfor communicating with the account management module 102.

Although FIG. 8 shows a single e-commerce server 1350 and a singleclient device 1370, the functionality described hereinbefore asperformed by the e-commerce serve 1350 and/or the client device 1370 maybe distributed across any number of devices that possesses similarcharacteristics and/or that include similar components 1352, 1354, 1356,1358, 1372, 1374, 11375, 1376, 1377 as the e-commerce server 1350 and/orthe client device 1370.

While examples are provided above with respect to FIGS. 1-8 whichincludes the use of email communications, the features describedhereinbefore may also be implemented using different types ofcommunications technology. For example, the features describedhereinbefore may also be implemented, mutatis mutandis, usingtechnologies that include any one or any combination of: email; instantmessaging; enterprise messaging; Short Message Service (SMS); MultimediaMessaging Service (MMS); and/or any other appropriate technology for theelectronic communication of data.

Additionally, the invention may be implemented using any type oftechnology or hardware capable to performing the features describedherein. For example, with respect to the receiving and sending of emailsby customers, FIG. 9 shows an example of an email message 1402 receivedby the user of a smart phone 1400. The email message 1402 includes twoproducts 1404 and 1406 wherein the user may simply click on the products1404 and 1406 using the smart phone 1400 to purchase the item desired bythe user. As is shown in FIG. 9, the email message 1402 includes theprice of each product 1408, 1410 along with addition related informationas described in detail hereinbefore. The email message 1402 alsoincludes the company, which in this case is Galore 1412 and anindication of the types of products, which in this case is Flowers andGifts 1414, offered for sale in the email message 1402.

Referring now to FIG. 10, in an additional embodiment, the email paymentgateway (reference numeral 115 of FIG. 1) may be configured to enableusers with smart phones to received @PAY offers using print media quickresponse (QR) codes. The email payment gateway was described in detailhereinbefore and, for convenience, will simply be shown in FIG. 10 usingreference numeral 1508.

By way of example, in this embodiment, a consumer views anadvertisement/product 1502 having a QR code 1504 and scans the QR code1504 using their smart phone 1506. Scanning the QR code 1504 generatesan email 1505 (e.g. using the consumer's smart phone email protocol)addressed to the email payment gateway 1508 requesting information onthe advertised product(s) associated with the QR code 1504. In thisembodiment, the email 1505 may be configured to be automatically sent tothe email payment gateway 1508 based on the scanning of the QR code 1504or the email 1505 may be generated and sent upon the user hitting thesend button.

The email payment gateway 1508 receives the email 1505 and responds tothe consumer with an email 1510 that includes information on theproduct(s) in the advertisement (i.e. product(s) associated with the QRcode 1504). Included in the email 1510, for each product associated withthe QR code 1504, is as button 1512 as described above (e.g. an @PAY“buy now” button). The button 1512 includes a mail-to hyperlink asdescribed above that generates an outgoing email reply 1514 including arequest to purchase the advertised product. Upon execution of themail-to hyperlink, as with email 1505, the reply email 1514 mayautomatically be sent to the email payment gateway 1508 or the email1514 may be generated and sent upon the user hitting the send button.

It is noted that email 1510 may be configured to include not only button1512 (and corresponding executable hyperlink) but may also additional“buy now” buttons for additional products similar to the advertisedproduct that the user may be interested in purchasing instead of and/orin addition to the advertised product.

The email payment gateway 1508 processes the consumer's email address.If the consumer is already in the system as a member, the email paymentgateway 1508 processes the order as described above and fulfills theorder using the shipping address and payment information using theconsumer's (i.e. member) profile. The email payment gateway 1508generates a confirmation email which is sent to the consumer/member thatindicates the order is complete.

If the consumer's email address is not in the email payment gateway 1508as a member, an email is sent to the consumer (not shown) including ahyperlink to a web-based page that allows the consumer to input shippingand payment information. Once the information is properly input into theemail payment gateway 1508 and the payment is processed, the consumer issent a confirmation email 1516 as hereinbefore described. In this case,the order is complete and the non-member consumer is now listed in theemail payment gateway 1508 as a member for future purchases.

Although the messaging between the smart phone 1506 and the emailpayment gateway 1508 has been described as being conducted by email byway of example, the messaging may comprise a text message, an emailmessage or a multimedia service (MMS) message, a tweet, an instantmessage, or a Facebook message or post. Additionally, a combination ofthese messages may be used. For example, the first message 1505 may be atext, and the email payment gateway may respond with an email 1510, oran email and a text. This may be configurable by the user.

As used herein, the term “vendor” broadly refers to and is not limitedto a business, for-profit organization, a non-profit organization, anyother type of organization, and/or an individual person. One example ofa business or for-profit organization is an online retailer. Examples ofnon-profit organizations include fundraising organizations, educationalinstitutions such as schools and universities, arts organizations, andrecreational organizations. Examples of recreational organizationsinclude historical or preservation societies, local recreational sportsleagues.

As used herein, the term “processor” broadly refers to and is notlimited to a single- or multi-core general purpose processor, a specialpurpose processor, a conventional processor, a digital signal processor(DSP), a plurality of microprocessors, one or more microprocessors inassociation with a DSP core, a controller, a microcontroller, one ormore Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), one or more FieldProgrammable Gate Array (FPGA) circuits, any other type of integratedcircuit (IC), a system-on-a-chip (SOC), and/or a state machine.

As used to herein, the term “computer-readable storage medium” broadlyrefers to and is not limited to a register, a cache memory, a ROM, asemiconductor memory device (such as a D-RAM, S-RAM, or other RAM), amagnetic medium such as a flash memory, a hard disk, a magneto-opticalmedium, an optical medium such as a CD-ROM, a DVDs, or BD, or other typeof device for electronic data storage.

Although features and elements are described above in particularcombinations, each feature or element can be used alone or in anycombination with or without the other features and elements. Forexample, each feature or element as described hereinbefore may be usedalone without the other features and elements or in various combinationswith or without other features and elements. Sub-elements of the methodsand features described hereinbefore may be performed in any arbitraryorder (including concurrently), in any combination or sub-combination.

What is claimed is:
 1. An email payment gateway comprising: a databaseconfigured to store information including an identifier and emailaddress of a plurality of customers; at least one processor configuredto process a first email received from a user wherein the email includesa quick response (QR) code; the processor further configured to identifya product associated with the QR code; the processor further configuredto send a second email to the user wherein the second email includes anexecutable hyperlink for purchasing the product; wherein the executablehyperlink is configured to generate a third email sent from user to theemail payment gateway requesting purchase of the product; the processorfurther configured to process payment and purchase of the product; andthe processor further configured to send a fourth email confirmingpurchase of the product.
 2. The email payment gateway of claim 1,wherein the first email message includes a plurality of hyperlinkscorresponding to a plurality of products wherein the second emailmessage is generated on a condition of any one of the plurality ofhyperlinks being executed.
 3. The email payment gateway of claim 2,wherein one of the plurality of hyperlinks is directly associated withthe product associated with the QR code and a remaining plurality ofhyperlinks is related to products similar to the product associate withthe QR code.
 4. The email payment gateway of claim 3, wherein the secondemail message includes the UUID associated with the executed hyperlink.5. The email payment gateway of claim 1, wherein the QR code is scannedfrom an advertisement using a smartphone.
 6. The email payment gatewayof claim 1, wherein the QR code is scanned from packaging of the productusing a smartphone.
 7. The email payment gateway of claim 1 furthercomprising a processor for requesting information from a user for whomcustomer information has not been previously input into the emailpayment gateway.
 8. The email payment gateway of claim 7, the processorfurther configured to receive an email from the user with the requestedinformation.
 9. The email payment gateway of claim 8, the processorfurther configured update the user as a member of the email paymentgateway.